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Slovenian philosopher Miran Bozovic's An Utterly Dark Spot examines the elusive status of the body in early modern European philosophy by examining its various encounters with the gaze. Its range is impressive, moving from the Greek philosophers and theorists of the body (Aristotle, Plato, Hippocratic medical writers) to early modern thinkers (Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, Descartes, Bentham) to modern figures including Jon Elster, Lacan, Althusser, Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen J. Gould, and others. Bozovic provides startling glimpses into various foreign mentalities haunted by problems of divinity, immortality, creation, nature, and desire, provoking insights that invert familiar assumptions about the relationship between mind and body.
The perspective is Lacanian, but Bozovic explores the idiosyncrasies of his material (e.g., the bodies of the Scythians, the transvestites transformed and disguised for the gaze of God; or Adam's body, which remained unseen as long as it was the only one in existence) with an attention to detail that is exceptional among Lacanian theorists. The approach makes for engaging reading, as Bozovic stages imagined encounters between leading thinkers, allowing them to converse about subjects that each explored, but in a different time and place. While its focus is on a particular problem in the history of philosophy, An Utterly Dark Spot will appeal to those interested in cultural studies, semiotics, theology, the history of religion, and political philosophy as well.
Miran Bozovic is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is the author of Der grosse Andere: Gotteskonzepte in der Philosophie der Neuzeit (Vienna: Verlag Turia & Kant, 1993) and editor of The Panopticon Writings by Jeremy Bentham (London: Verso, 1995).
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Opera's Second Death is a passionate exploration of opera - the genre, its masterpieces, and the nature of death. Using a dazzling array of tools, Slavoj Zizek and coauthor Mladen Dolar explore the strange compulsions that overpower characters in Mozart and Wagner, as well as our own desires to die and to go to the opera. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

leads you backstage into places opera don't know
Opera is perhaps the most perfect subject for Zizek's gaze with Hegelian negations and Absolutes Lacan's "object petit a,"Four Discourses" in the Master Signifier, the divided self,desire, don't be scared away for the cloistered world of opera can use such insights to help clarify its own anxieties self-indulgences and excesses throughout its histories. In fact opera now cannot live without someone speaking about it deeply as Zizek does, especially the self-conscious dimensions in Wagner's dramas, the negations of the negations(from Hegel) as "Parsifal" a redeemer redeeming the redemption,or dealing with "Other" those aspects that we wish we could do without but are there anyways, like feminist extremism not wanting man to be around,as in Carmen, or Tosca, or Wotan not wanting to be responsible for his pacts carved on his staff. Zizek and Dolar both bring a formidable array of concepts to opera to make some illuminations clearer I think. If you simply want opera to go on as it is without comment, simply sit back and let it wash over your brain, well this is not a book for you.

Opera on the Couch
To those who love opera and know nothing about psychoanalysis or philosophy this book will be challenging and probably incomprehensible.Still, if anyone can get an Opera Queen to think, it might be Slavoj Zizek and Mladen Dolar.Dolar's is a more conventional and comprehensive treatment of the history of opera as a history of ideas.It is excellent and one can almost read the copious notes as a separate and equally enjoyable experience.Zizek uses particular operas to explain profound and fascinating ideas about love and death, narcissism and self-destruction, through the ideas (among others) of Lacan and Hegel.Ever since Zizek's seminal books explaining the complexities of Lacan and Hegel through popular entertainment he has accrued fame in intellectual circles without ever becoming pompous or complacent.He makes for enjoyable and provocative reading and chances are, after you've read him, you'll be keeping an eye out for his next book. ... Read more

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In Slavoj Zizek and Michel Foucault, this book brings together two of the most prominent thinkers in contemporary critical theory. Starting from a critical assessment of the Foucauldian paradigm of discourse analysis, it explores the theoretical scope and political consequences of Zizek's blend of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Hegelian philosophy and Marxist politics. The comparison between the two thinkers throws into relief the commonalities and irreconcilable differences of their respective approaches to critical theory. By unmasking reality as contingent symbolic fiction, the authors argue, Foucauldian criticism has only deconstructed the world in different ways; the point, however, is `to recognize the Real in what appears to be mere symbolic fiction' (Zizek) and to change it. ... Read more

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strawman debate?
I have to admit I have not read this book. However, I would not buy this book because if the following statement (see below) in the scanty product description reflect the authors' understanding of Foucault, then I think this is very likely to be a strawman debate. But, since the authors favour Zizek's approach, I suspect this book will have a more defensible account of Zizek's work so it may be worth it from that point of view.

''By unmasking reality as contingent symbolic fiction, the authors argue, Foucauldian criticism has only deconstructed the world in different ways; the point, however, is `to recognize the Real in what appears to be mere symbolic fiction' (Zizek) and to change it.''

Firstly, Foucault is not a relativist regarding the truth (see Todd May's book: 'Btween genealogy and epistemology'). In fact, he is not concerned with questions of truth versus fiction.Instead he is interested in how it is that certain practices have historically come to function as truths. He explicitly does not make claims as to what is actually 'true' or not and does not purport to 'unmask' reality as mere fiction. As he has said numerous times, he leaves the question of truth open. Foucault is not concerned with showing that truth does not exist.

Moreover, his approach could only be considered as an entirely deconstructive exercise if one believes, as in our dominant truth regime, truth must be purified of ethics, power and contingencies to be legitimate. Foucault, in contrast, does not think that tracing the elements and exposing the contingencies and power techniques in the constitution of knowledges/truth by itself delegitimizes truth claims. According to him, this neither undermines nor supports these claims to truth. Instead, he thinks we cannot produce truths/knowledge, nor indeed have society, without power techniques of some sort, so it is pointless to try to eradicate them. Instead we should be concerned with modifying and changing them and this should be informed by ethical concerns. So, unlike much of the critical tradition, Foucault is not at all interested in deconstructing the ideological contamination of truth or reason but rather he is interested in how it was put together in order to be able to think/act out different (equally contingent but more acceptable) configurations and discern 'weak' points in the present architecture.

BTW, Foucault is often mistaken for a relativist, in part, because he is highly skeptical of claims to truth made in human sciences, particularly 'human nature', and in his studies he proceeds from the presumption 'what if' we take claims to truth as unproven (eg of human nature) and proceed as far as possible (this can only ever be partial for any given study) without a priori theory to direct and interpret our 'findings'.

It is also inaccurate to characterise Foucault as being concerned with 'symbolic' fictions. He clearly distinguishes his work from the analysis of signs, symbols and communication. He does not dismiss these techniques but he thinks it is more interesting and productive to study concrete, real practices, ie as the complex network of techniques of power that operate at many levels in modern societies.In his approach, communication tools are a possible technology of power among many others (but communication is not reducible to relations of power).Foucault's insistence on this approach is precisely because he is concerned with practical material and political effects of the entwinement of techniques of power both with knoweldge and the constitution of ourselves as subjects - in our very desires, ways of knowing, capacities, will to rule ourselves... etc. So this is no mere concern with 'symbolism' - in fact his work is possibly better described as concerned with'material' fictions (that may or may not also be 'true').

Likewise the authors would be mistaken if they also attribute to Foucault a lack of ethico-political concern for addressing and changing specific practices in our present.The whole point of his historico-empirical investigations has been to provide an analysis that informs not only his own ethico-research concerns but those of practitioners in political struggles. The point is to open up the possibilities for thinking and acting otherwise. To recognise what has been taken for granted as something that can be changed in very concrete ways. He believed the role of intellectuals was not to take up privileged positions as tactical advisors in practical political struggles, because he thought that was better undertaken by those directly engaged in those struggles. ... Read more

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Sigmund Freud's text on the Wolf Man is constructed in terms of translation. Between the seduction and the dream, we can see the passivity which is first translated as being beaten by the father, and then translated as the wish to be sexually satisfied by his father. In this regard, what Freud calls genitality functions as the giver of significations. Lacan establishes the causality of the signifier upon the signified in order to arrange the father and castration in the ways you already know, namely by means of the Name-of-the-Father and the phallus as signified. There is an opposition between this and the moment when he turns the phallus into a symbolic signifier. Jacques-Alain Miller ... Read more

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A fascinating collection of Lacanian commentary
Ever since Jacques Lacan entered the intellectual ring in the 1950s he has been a focal point of discussion and stimulation.His elusive, intriguing, often profound writings have generated wave upon wave of commentary and inspiration.Slavoj Zizek is one of the most lucid (and certainly entertaining) explicators of Lacan.He and Renata Salecl have edited a superb collection of essays by some of the most interesting and articulate writers in the field.Though these writings require a certain familiarity with the disciplines of philosophy and psychoanalysis they should entice adventurous readers by their combination of erudition and wit. Both of Zizek's contributions are astonishing as well as entertaining. Fine as it is, the essay by Frederick Jameson seems out of place, as though it belonged in a different anthology. ... Read more

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Why Lenin?Why Now?
In any period where uncertainty dominates, and even more so in periods that seems terribly bleak, intellectuals commonly reach for prior "success stories" to buttress their hope for the future.Lenin's popularity today, thanks in no small part to Slavoj Zizek, the only name here that most people will have any familiarity with, reflects the claim to success of the seizure of power in 1917 and Lenin's early death which allows many people to dissociate him from Stalinism (not that Zizek, however, does so, not to mention the number of Maoist creeps writing in this book.)

Some will recover Lenin as the politicizer of Marx, the man who translated Marx from theorist into political force (itself a deep falsification of Marx as political man and Lenin as theoretician.)Others will see in him the first to 'return to Hegel', and therefore the first Hegelian Marxist (thanks in no small part to the raw and obscure nature of Lenin's notebooks on Hegel's Logic, allowing for all kinds of fantastic nonsense.)Still others see in 'State & Revolution' and 'Imperialism' high works of Marxist theory.And others will praise Lenin's internationalism.Still others will praise his defense of national liberation.

I am against demonizing Lenin.He was a part of the left-wing in social democracy, including Rosa Luxemburg, Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter, the Bremen Left, the German left communists, Lukacs and Korsch.Nonetheless, it is not clear that there is anything worth reclaiming from Lenin (his revolutionary defeatism is the only thing that comes to mind.)

His theory of imperialism betrays much confusion regarding Marx's critique of political economy (for example, his confusion over the concentration of capital and the centralization of capital, his mistaken notions of money, the absence of a notion of value, his treatment of competition, etc.)

His theory of the state is the typical instrumental treatment of the state as a vessel which can be filled with any content.

His policies undermined the factory councils, soviets, and in fact everything tending to transform daily life in Russia, in favor of modernization along typically capitalist lines: reinforcement of wage labor, piece wages, forced overtime, etc.

His theory of the party, whose highest theoretical formation was actually Lukacs' work on imputed class consciousness, made the party the brain and the class the body, thereby simply reproducing the mental-manual dichotomy of class society anyway, and begging the question of who educates the educator.

Lenin at least had the decency to call the Soviet Union what it was: state capitalism.Contrary to the Trotskyist fantasy, Lenin never abandoned his earlier conceptions of a workers and peasants' state over a capitalist economy.The problem is that it was then and is even more so today a recipe for capitalist development and takes us not one inch close to the abolition of capitalism.

The support for nationalist struggles, for a politics of anti-imperialism, has been the basis for selling out to one nationalist i.e. capitalist, leadership after another, whether in the Pop Fronts of 1925-7 in China, in 1935 in France, in 1936-7 in Spain or after WWII under the rubric of "left-wing" national independence in Vietnam, Algeria, Iran, Nicaragua or in Iraq today as they bow and scrape before Islamicist "right-wing" politics.All nationalist politics is anti-proletarian, all of it is predicated on the unity of labor and capital.

Lenin believed he was carrying out a communist politics when he brought his Lassallean politics to power in 1917.He was wrong.In fact, it was evident to many already in 1920.But there will always be an academic cottage industry for the left-wing of capitalism and a politics of untruth.Lenin is the symbol that marks a moment in time and gives a name to the limits of a certain constellation of class struggle and theoretical consciousness, one which can tell us a lot about how we got into the mess we are in but which has nothing to say about how to get out.

God is a Post-Modern Left Wing Intellectual
This is an awful book, full of elliptical jargon that exemplifies the piteous state left wing theory has stumbled into. The basic problem seems to be the capture of Marxism by an exclusively university-based contingent of professional obscurantists and windbags. Since the demise of communist states marxism lost any semblance of a connection to lived experience and the lives and struggles of real people. It now resembles the species of 19th century German idealist philosophy that Lenin reviled. It is amusing to contemplate what Lenin would make of Badiou or the unbelievably opaque Zizek, and how he would review this mud-wallow of speculation without praxis, addressed to a vacuum. It seems designed to put its audience to sleep or drive them into the arms of Liberal Democratic theory. At least that body of work has some relation to reality and attempts to address itself to the real world. There is something to be said for Leninist labour camps for this pompous gaggle of academic wankers.

Much ado about nothing
It is unfortunate that such an important political figure in the history of socialism as Lenin is so often outside the realm of academic discussion, and therefore the reasoning behind having a collection of academic writers discuss Lenin specifically is a good one. However, the result, "Lenin Reloaded: Towards a Politics of Truth" is astoundingly mediocre.

The great majority of the articles are incomprehensible pseudo-philosophical ramblings, either by professional dilettantes like Zizek, Jameson, and Balibar, or by people who do have something to say but are incapable of expressing themselves clearly, like Badiou and Callinicos. The greater part of this book is dedicated to essays musing on Lenin's relation to Lacan, the "Situation", "Leninist gestures", "the dialectic today", and so on and so forth. Even a normally engaging writer like Terry Eagleton comes off poorly when forced to write on such an infertile ground, although he at least has the advantage of being a skilled writer. It is unfortunate, but it is safe to say that almost all the articles in this collection can be skipped without any loss to the reader.

I say skipped, however, because there are a few contributions that at least redeem this book a little bit, although to strain the reader's patience they are all put at the back of the book (perhaps nobody can be enticed to actually read the likes of Zizek or Kouvelakis otherwise). Georges Labica has a strong and interesting piece comparing Lenin's view of imperialism to global capitalism today. Also of interest is a perhaps somewhat far-fetched, but nevertheless very original and intriguing view of Lenin as a socialist missionary by Lars Lih, who incidentally is also the only author in the collection to not express support for Lenin. This is best read in combination with the article by Alan Shandro on Lenin's idea of vanguard politics and its relation to hegemony in politics, an essay surprisingly free of Gramscian jargon. But the best contribution in the collection is probably by Domenico Losurdo, who uses Lenin to mount a very strong and rhetorically effective, almost Mike Davis-like, attack onliberalism's hypocrisy and pretense about democracy and 'human rights', both in the past and today. This article and that of Lih are certainly must reads. Borrow this book from a university library to read those, and so spare yourself the expense of money for a whole pile of nothing. ... Read more

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Trotsky and Zizek on revolutionary violence.Written in the white heat of revolutionary Russia's Civil War, Trotsky's Terrorism and Communismis one of the most potent defenses of revolutionary dictatorship. In his provocative commentary to this new editionthe philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues that Trotsky’s attack on theillusions of liberal democracy has a vital relevance today. ... Read more

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defense of equality
this was Trotsky's bout with one-time Marxist Karl Kautsky, representative of Social-Democracy,revolution,the affinity for parliamentarian incremental change through bourgeois means; ballot-boxes, sitting sovereigns, capital comforted with safety nets, and the context here is Soviet Russia was waiting(isolated) for assistance from the German Revolution to happen which just eroded away with the murder of Rosa Luxemberg, curious that the word "terror" has magnetized itself around it new multi-dimensional meanings,the media has done wonderful work bundling the word "terror" with anything resembling opposition, I doubt if Israeli apparatchiks could speak on TV without utilizing the word a few dozen times, to define, fears fears-of-fears,Unknown-Knowns-Fears,Known-Knowns, the Rumsfeldian epistemology,still there is some marvelous reflections here from Trotsky on the Paris Commune,the balance of power in the shape of the globe circa 1920; the paradigms of power and the next thread in its evolution, Kautsky simply wanted to preserve, the Known-Knowns,without seeking to face those monstrous Un-Knowns, he didn't have a sensibility for such dangers, Trotsky did up to a point,but was blind of his own fate, yet here there is good analysis of the reality of aftermath Soviet situations prior to the Stalin Thermidor was to take root,a vastly involutarily trained endoctrinated marxologist himself I suspect Zizek is looking for cognitive "threads"in shapes resembling Badiou-ian " Truth" nodes, "Events" which can illumine a path perhaps simply to more discussions on youtube within the world un-evolving postpoltical context, with bio-politics, and the neo-liberal order at the helms stirring the ship with their own cognitive maps. Zizek is good at what he does, and leaves out the residue of rhetorical hatreds you still odiously find on the Left,fighting self-defeating battles merely to hear one's own voice, I like to recall the old RCA white putchee dog, staring mindlessly into vinyl playing speaker cone; "What's this?" like the Left does today for things they refuse to explain, Zizek has a Wotan-like spirit in these Verso writings assignments assembling his theoretical "Walkure" to assist him; ... Read more